How to make better static ads in 2026

Hey guys,

WOOPSIE. I was so excited to get this email out to you that I accidentally sent out a draft before it was ready! Apologies for sending that earlier on, that was a mistake on my side :)

But let’s get into the REAL newsletter today…about making static ads!

A lot of brands assume static ads are just for MOF and BOF. But the reality is that statics can (and often do) work at TOF for 8 and 9 figure brands when you know what you're doing.

18 months ago I did an internal training with my team on exactly this. They loved it so much I turned it into a YouTube video, which is now one of my most viewed to date, and almost everything in it is more relevant today than it was back then.

Below are the key points from that training, plus a few new ones I've thrown in for the v2 video coming out in a few weeks.

If you want to watch the v1 training, here's the YouTube video.

But for those that would rather read, let's get into it :)

First, here's what I've found interesting this week:

• New York imposed a new law requiring disclosure for AI-generated people in ads as of June 9th. Very important read for anyone running AI UGC.

• One of my favorite ever brand partnerships was this video that did 1M views overnight, an example of paid content that doesn't read like paid content.

• Andrew McCalip turned the Claude Code spinner into an ad marketplace where users keep 50% of bid revenue. Kinda wild lol.

8 rules for static ads in 2026

1. Statics work at TOF…

Most brands use video for TOF and statics for MOF/BOF. Statics can and often do work at TOF for 8 and 9 figure brands.

You’ve just got to make sure you don’t fall into the trap that most marketers do.

What most marketers’ statics have:

❌ Pretty design

❌ Weak (or worse, clever) headline

❌ No psychological appeal

What acquisition have:

✅ Clear, bold headline

✅ Simple USP callouts

✅ Psychology-based design

For example, if you’re advertising for an anti-dandruff shampoo:

"My confidence is back" vs "The only shampoo that ended my dandruff battle"

Which one is immediately relevant to someone who doesn't know or care about your brand?

Use this as the litmus test for top-of-funnel ads.

2. Keep it simple, stupid

One of the biggest mistakes I see is brands trying to be too clever with their static ads.

I oversee 50+ ad accounts and have access to hundreds more. And I can categorically tell you that the vast majority of static winners fall into one of these 4 categories:

• Comparison ads (Us vs Them, Before vs After, Me now vs Future me). Use Parker or Gemini to rank failed solutions your customers have tried by popularity in reviews - those are the ones to prioritise.

• Product image statics (product + headline + benefits, or headline only). We've had more winners from this format than any other. Often using a customer review as a headline pulled from Parker.

• Organic statics (publications, press hits, post-it notes, native ads, comment responses) - anything that looks like an actual organic post.

• Offer-based ads (offers, collections, bundles). Not as incremental as acquisition statics, but still scoop up existing demand. Not to be ignored.

Often the winners are a combination. Do the basics well, then obsess over message testing.

3. Your customers are your copywriters

You likely have winning ads sitting in your reviews and post-purchase surveys right now. You just have to dig them out.

Too many people overcomplicate this. All you have to do is work out what words and phrases your customers are actually using, then relay them back in your messaging.

Three things I look for:

1. Headline-ready reviews. Prompt: "Look through these reviews and find the ones most suitable for a Facebook ad headline. It shouldn't be long, but should use the customer's language."

2. Insider phrases and in-jokes. They instantly qualify your target audience and disqualify everyone else. You want people to read it and think "only people like me use that word/phrase."

3. Long, emotive reviews. Great for turning directly into ad scripts or using as primary text for native ads.

This is exactly what we built Parker for, it ingests all your customer reviews and ad comments and surfaces the headline-ready lines, insider phrases, and emotive language automatically.

4. Make people feel something

Don't just talk about how good your product is. Talk about the emotional transformation your audience experiences with your product.

The best copy doesn't feel like selling. It feels like understanding. You're proving beyond reasonable doubt that you're in the target audience.

Some of the highest-performing headlines I've seen:

• "I feel like everyone's staring even if they aren't"

• "My skin is a sign saying I'm different"

• "My knees felt like they were betraying me with every step"

• "For the first time my reflection shows someone I'm proud of"

• "They taste so good I almost cried"

These aren't regular headlines. They're emotional triggers that qualify the right audience and disqualify everyone else. Ads with headlines like these have spent six figures in our accounts. Some are still running years later.

Again, I go to Parker to uncover these,(you can also use Gemini but Parker tends to do a better job at finding them), because oftentimes they're already in your customer reviews.

5. Statics have hooks too…

People don't read static ads top to bottom. They subconsciously scan them in a fraction of a second to look for key information before deciding if they actually want to consume the ad or keep scrolling.

Be intentional with what they see first. Think about:

• Placement and sizing of images and headlines

• What you say in the headline

• Use of fonts and colours

• Text warps and distortions (psychologically proven to add that extra half-second of attention because they're different)

• Text highlights, arrows, bold and underline

For example, the winning Meno ad: "Faking it with my husband" stands out first because of size. Then "since perimenopause" adds context and qualifies the audience. Then the product. Then the 3,600 reviews for social proof. Then the primary text. Every element is intentionally placed to guide the reader's journey.

If nothing stands out when someone first scans, they'll keep scrolling. Use these elements strategically, rather than just throwing some text and images on a Figma file.

6. Be clear and concise

Make your ads easy to consume. If there's a way to make the same point in fewer words, do it.

A lot of advertisers make ads that look cool on LinkedIn for other marketers but fail the basic test of actually selling the product.

Examples:

• "A men's polo that's made for all body types" → "Men's polos for all body types"

• "Scientifically engineered to fight scalp flakiness" → "My secret weapon against dandruff"

• "Experience the revolutionary comfort of our new design" → "Most comfortable jeans ever"

I often feed my headlines into Claude and ask it to say the same thing in fewer or simpler words.

Clear beats clever every time.

7. Test with intention

Everyone's building Claude Code workflows and doing volume with statics right now, but most of it is volume without strategy.

We had a client struggling recently. So we ran a persona analysis, went through all their customer reviews, ad comments, and post-purchase surveys, then cross-referenced them against the ad account to find underserved personas.

It turned out there were a lot of reviews from older guys, but barely any ads targeting that demo in the account. So we made some stupidly simple statics for that persona. Design-wise they were nothing special. But because we'd unlocked an underserved audience, they crushed.

That persona now makes up 3 of the top 5 ads in the account.

I'm all for volume with AI. We do a lot of it too. But it should supplement your creative strategy, not replace it. There's only so far you can get blindly copying ads from swipe files.

Going deep on persona analysis is how you find the unlocks that 2-3x your account.

8. Reverse engineer winning copy

If you're going to get inspiration from other accounts, make sure you're getting most of it from things that actually work.

The "sort by impressions" feature on Meta ads library is surprisingly accurate. Across 3 of our client accounts I checked recently: all of the top 6 ads by impressions were in the top 10 ads in the ad account.

So sorting by impressions is a fairly strong proxy for what's working for your competitors. Way stronger than looking at longest-running ads. It works because ads that scale get a lot of spend behind them, which means a lot of impressions. Not a perfect 1:1, but the correlation is strong enough to bet on.

A few brands that I think are particularly good at statics that I spy on: O-Positive, Obvi, Huel and Oats Overnight.

These are the 8 rules. None of them are new, but they're the ones I keep coming back to.

I'd be interested to hear which of these has been most impactful in your account, hit reply and let me know.

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See you next week,

Alex

P.S. If you're spending $100k+ monthly on paid social and want help implementing ugly ad strategies like these, my team at Adcrate is accepting applications to work with us. Check out our case studies at adcrate.co.